I admit that modern science is subject to vogues, and that usually these fleeting scientific fashions are based on some exaggerated view of recent discoveries. We all know the vogue of immense periods of time which has now been with us many years. It is interesting to note that a reaction has at last set in, and we are now hearing from very high scientific authorities that the universe is not by any means so old as we have been urged to believe.
Of course, no enlightened Adventist believes that the stellar universe is merely some six or seven thousand years old. We all know that the universe in general has been in existence for an indefinite period prior to the creation of our solar system. It is the creation of this solar system which is brought to view in the first chapter of Genesis. Nevertheless it is interesting to note the reaction against the extravagant periods formerly claimed by astronomers, the present estimates being only about a millionth part of the periods formerly asserted.
Sir James Jeans is well known as the fearless advocate of a real creation of the stuff of which the universe is composed. I have already presented what he has said on this subject. More recently he astonished some English scientists with the following:
"We must conclude that the universe of stars is still quite young, in spite of looking so old; its many appearances of great age must all be deceptive."—Nature Supplement, October 24, 1931, p. 703.
The scientific reasons back of this new view are somewhat varied, and all are considerably difficult to explain briefly in a nontechnical way. But one of the chief evidences for this new view is based on the behavior of the spiral nebulae, all of which are immensely remote in space, but all of which are visibly running away from us at enormous velocities. And as Jeans expresses the matter, they are visibly running away at such a terrific speed that they cannot have been doing this for any very great period of time.
So far as I know, all the leading astronomers and astrophysicists have now adopted this view. As Science News Letter expresses the case in the current issue:
"The far-flung universe of stars, nebula, and star dust is not much older than the solar system and the earth itself."—April 2, 1932, p. 216.
This method of stating the relative ages of the solar system and the rest of the universe will appeal to any Adventist. And were it not that very extravagant periods are still assigned for the age of the earth, the whole new position of the scientific world would now be in measurable conformity with the picture given us in the Bible.
The article in Science News Letter just referred to is based on the report of a lecture by Dr. E. J. Opik, a visiting professor from Europe now lecturing at Harvard University. Dr. Opik is quoted as saying:
“Stars of different spectral classes cannot have evolved from one another.
They must have been created simultaneously, and their age is too short for any appreciable evolution."
This also we acknowledge as good, sound doctrine.
And the writer in Science News Letter (which, by the way, is the official and authoritative bulletin of that branch of the American association which is called Science News Service) summarizes the results of these new views:
"It deals a severe blow to the idea that the universe of stars and nebulae is an outgrowth of a process of relatively slow evolution." —/bid.
As nothing is likely to be hit upon in a good many years to disturb this new vogue in astronomy, it might be well for our evangelists to make note of this new line of discovery, since it is manifestly bringing opinion around more to our own views.
Berrien Springs, Mich.
